Saga of the Tongues - Book 1: Dovahkiin
by Allosaurus.Jei
Summary: From Helgen to High Hrothgar; the story of a Father and Daughter journeying across the war-torn landscape of Skyrim, alongside their companions and sometimes their rivals and foes. Action, Adventure, mayhaps a little Comedy. R&R if you have something to say, kind, critical or just outright flaming is all welcomed. Rated M for language, violence, gore, sex and other adult themes
1. Preface

**_Disclaimer_** : TESV: Skyrim belongs to Bethesda. Most certainly nothing in the world depicted herein belongs to me apart from the OC's.

* * *

 ** _Saga of the Tongues - Book 1_**

 **Dovahkiin**

 _Helgen…_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Where do I start?_

 _When I saw my Father for the first time? When I was dragged from the cart, bound and gagged? When I stabbed the Imperial soldier in the throat and felt his lifeblood pool about my fingers? Or…_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Yes, let's start with the dragon. This is to be my tale after all. Let others tell you how we all came to be in Helgen that fateful morning. It does not concern me. If this is to be the story of the Last Dragonborn then surely it should start with an introduction to my greatest foe._

 _The World Eater…_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Alduin._


	2. Prologue: Escape from Helgen

**Escape From Helgen**

 **Elka**

 _I was in the kitchens below the keep, being dragged to the dungeons and a bit of mild torture I guess. That's what they do when you nearly bite a Legate's fingers off apparently._ 'Teach her how to behave!' _was how she'd put it. I will reiterate, this is just my best guess, I never had the opportunity to find out because it was there, as I stumbled to hide my grabbing a knife from the table that I heard it for the first time. His voice._

 _His Thu'um…_

The very sound of it drowned out all other noise in Helgen that day. The moment of silence afterwards had quickly been filled with explosions and screams. I ran through the corridor, my forearms damp with blood and my right hand gripping a dead imperial soldier's short-sword which was still clean and quite a bit heavier than I was expecting. The door in front of me gave with a little shoulder push and I was out and into the open.

The smell was the first thing I noticed, followed closely by the visual confirmation of what it was that I smelled. Burning corpses. Burning buildings. Burning everything. Even the boulders strewn across the clearing which had housed our prison carts were smouldering.

"…" my mouth tried but my mind could not find the words to respond to what I saw in front of me. Except one, "…what?"

My answer came on black wings and with a blistering roar. _**YOL! TOOR! SHUL!**_ The dragon whipped overhead and lay ablaze everything in its wake with a white hot shower of flame. _The Dragon!_ A Dragon! Here and now in this sleepy backwater fortress-town. It pitched and spun in the air with such grace I was drawn to stop and look, which is what allowed me to catch his gaze.

Something. That is all I could describe it as, something deep. Something beyond my own mind urged me to step forward and crouch in an attack stance, blade held towards the soaring monster.

It…

.

.

.

 _He_ … laughed at me. _**YOL!**_ A fireball flashed towards me faster than I could move, and so I have to concede that my luck is far more fortunate than I believed. I felt the heat on my face as a weedy Redguard boy tackled me back through the open doorway. I could hear the great beast chuckling as he flew over the round keep we found ourselves in.

"Was he _laughing_ at us?" The boy had a feminine accent. I don't feel any regret saying that I hated him almost immediately.

" _Me_ ," I reiterated for him. It had been clear to me in that moment that the fireball was not a killing strike but rather a playful, _or insulting_ , jab. Meant to frighten the scruffy Nord girl looking to stand up to a great bloody **dragon** with naught but some prison rags and a pilfered sword she couldn't use.

"Interesting." He placed his hand on his chin and pondered. _In the middle of a dragon attack!_ I decided to punch him in the face at some point. Then he held his arm out, "My name is Jaliannon. Pleased to meet you miss…" his expectant look was not lost on me.

 _Jah-Lee-An-On_ I sounded his name in my head in case I needed to use it sometime in the future. Hopefully right before hitting him. "Elka." I replied, not bothering to clasp his arm or cater to his polite enthusiasm. It couldn't hurt to tell him my clan name though, in fact I hoped it would frighten him away. "Elka Ashtongue."

It did not go as expected. His face split into a grin and he became even more enthusiastic. "A _Witch_! Haha!" he seemed like one of those clever idiots Mother always warned me about. "A Witch, a Dragon and an Elven Inquisitor all in one day! Oh how marvellous!"

"Elv-" I was momentarily curious about the Elven Inquisitor but a tremor which seemed to rock the entire mountain pass quickly reminded me that now was not the time. I needed to escape.

"Wah!" The Redguard boy exclaimed and quickly put his hands up when I lay the blade next to his throat.

"Jaliannon, how do I get out of here?"

"I don't know! I've only been here for a day, don't expect me to know everything about this ent- _hoof_." His last remark being cut off by my punching him in the jaw. _Useless whelp._

I drop the sword and briefly scan the room as he sits on his arse grumbling. I steal a dagger, a red tunic and a set of leather strides before legging it back down the same corridor I'd anticipated would be my escape. I was eager to escape, to flee from the insanity of a mythical fire-breathing, flying lizard and the more mundane but somehow equally disturbing youth. _Mother, where are you?_ I knew she'd been captured like me, I also knew that a bit of fire and a collapsed building or two would not slow her down in the least. The only problem I had was that I had no earthly idea of how to escape from this place. Taking the stairs two at a time I nearly fell flat on my face when another tremor rumbled through the fort.

"Shitting monster!" I swear roughly as my newly acquired clothes and weapon go tumbling. "Just piss off already." In that same deep place as before though I was certain that _He_ would be going nowhere soon. Not until he'd finished having… fun.

* * *

I nearly tore the burlap the Imperials had thrown over me when they'd arrested me. It was only ever meant to cover my ' _modesty_ ' and well, I looked straight down at my uncovered chest, there wasn't much of that anyway. It was useful at least for scraping the quickly drying blood from my hands. I was back in the kitchen where I'd first engineered my escape and was avoiding looking in a particular direction. I kept the loincloth the soldiers had been _kind_ enough to leave on my spindly frame and the sacking trousers at least seemed serviceable, so they could stay for now too. Besides the leather pair I'd stolen wouldn't fit unless I suddenly grew another foot in height and stone in weight. The red tunic was baggy on me, obviously meant for a much larger Nord and I had nowhere to sit the dagger. Knowing where I could find a slightly bloodstained but serviceable belt I looked -

… _the blood pooling across my hands, sliding through my clenched fists…the half-scream gurgling from his bloodstained lips…the deep black in his pupils somehow fading…disintegrating…ebbing away like the tide…_

 _-_ at the Cyrodil corpse slumped against the wall. Cheese-knife still embedded deep in his throat, eyes and mouth twisted into an expression of morbid agog. His hands lay flat, palms upward as though begging the Divines to answer him why. _Why now? Why her? Why this?_

I watched it for a moment just in case some other new weirdness caused it to lurch back to life. Satisfied the former man wouldn't try to strangle me if I got close I rushed over and fumbled the belt off. The congealing blood was still warm and came away rather easily with a rub of my ruined 'shirt'.

As I threw the bloodstained burlap onto the corpse I notice his leather helm had somehow escaped being tainted by crimson. _If I'm wearing that and these clothes_ , the Imperial red tunic and a belt emblazoned with it's crest, _then maybe I could get by the guards without them trying to arrest me again. Or worse._ Another tremor shook the immediate world and I decided in a flash, stealing the dead man's helm and also nicking one of his bootlaces as a makeshift tie for my stolen dagger.

Now looking somewhat like an Imperial Army errand-boy or girl (I hoped) I set off to the back end of the kitchen, towards the dungeons where my escort had been taking me in the first place before I'd incinerated my bonds. Maybe, just maybe, there was another way out or at least a place to hide until the shaking stopped. _Although_ , I reminded myself, _just because it stops trembling doesn't mean He won't still be up there_. I imagined the great black monster sitting in the smouldering ruins of the keep, chuckling at the folly of all the squishy little men and mer trying to stop Him. It was surprisingly realistic for a vision of a creature I'd seen only once. I shivered with barely suppressed horror and descended into the gaol.

* * *

As soon as I pushed open the somewhat broken door to the dungeon I could smell the blood and charred flesh. I almost panicked, thinking that somehow He had made His way down here as well. A glance told me that wasn't the case however, and upon closer inspection it seemed like a small and rather intense battle had taken place in this…

"Great," I muttered to myself, taking a bit of solace in my sarcasm. "Just what I was looking for. A _torture chamber_."

In one of the nearby cages hung an emaciated man dressed in almost tattered mage robes and strewn about the room lay five bodies. The nearest was a large if somewhat _short_ Nord still grasping his battle-axe. He probably would have been taller save for the unfortunate fact that his head seemed to be missing. I wasn't particularly eager to find it and so the only other thing I noted was his red uniform. _One of the soldiers here then_. The next two were both wearing the blue and brown uniforms of the Stormcloaks. The 'rebels' they'd been hauling here for execution, which had apparently been interrupted by a Dragon. One was a tall, blonde woman who would have looked statuesque and beautiful were it not for the great rend in her chest, I looked back at _shorty_ and noticed the axe head was still covered in gore. The other Stormcloak was curled up and had what I immediately recognised as lightning burns across his cheeks and bare forearms; having seen similar injuries on bandits who thought attacking a isolated camp full of nothing but women had been a good idea. My aunt Greta had not taken kindly to being called wench _or_ having a blade held to her throat.

Another Imperial soldier, a Redguard it seemed, lay nearby. His armour was singed. As was his skin and the floor around him. But most odd was the fact that he looked as though he'd been mauled to death. Finally was the body that was slumped against the furthest cage, he too wore singed armour, though his cowl marked him as different from the other two, and it seemed he'd received a rather nasty belly wound as crimson had spilled across the trembling arm he clasped to his midsection. _Huh? Trembling_?

"Boy." His voice was raspy and quiet. His hooded face turned up at mine and his eyes were clouded with pain.

"S-sir?" I was uncertain as to how to address this dying man in front of me. I hoped that confused respect was the right answer.

"Help me up would you." It wasn't a question. In fact it was barely a request. He must have noticed my hesitation and sighed. His other arm came up and shakily pointed towards a small alcove in the opposite wall where a bench laden with what were clearly torturer's tools sat tucked behind an iron grate. "There should be a healing potion over there. Bring it here."

"Y-yes sir." Perhaps this man knew a way out. As I rushed over to the bench I called back, "What happened here?"

"Damn Stormcloaks is what happened." He hissed in pain and I could hear the subdued rage in his voice. "Them and their cursed witch."

I froze for just a moment before ducking behind the wooden bench to search for the red potion. "Witch, sir?"

"Ah. Bitch summoned a flaming bloody wolf out of nowhere." My heart leapt. _Mother!_ The _Burning Familiar_ was one of my mother's favourite spells; she tended to use it whenever the chance presented itself. "I managed to dispel it but then one of the rebel bastards stabbed me in the gut." He was a mage then, I surmised that he'd been the one to electrocute the male Stormcloak. _I don't really want to rely on someone Mother tried to kill_ , in my opinion anyone who'd earned her ire was not particularly trustworthy, _but perhaps he knows the way out._ I found the bottle of scarlet liquid and poked my head above the shelves to ask as much when I saw him look at the entranceway and half-shout, "What are you doing here?"

"Tch," a man's voice made an irritated noise right before an arrow buried itself into the torturer's right eye socket, I ducked back down immediately. "Oblivion, what happened here?" There seemed to be a musical lilt to the voice, like birdsong or the quiet tune of a secluded brook.

Another voice answered him and I recognised it as a female Orc. "Sheems they had a little shquabble, hehe." The deep, gravelly tone punctuated by a barely noticeable lisp. I'd met Orcs before and they all tended to sound a little off, their tusks got in the way of certain human words. "Nice ahxe though."

"Bring it if you like," this voice was different again. It reminded me of the boy I'd decked earlier but much deeper. "I couldn't find your war-hammer in the carts." He chuckled then, a pleasant baritone sound. "Not that I had a chance to look with that thing flying about."

"Ah." The sound of metal scraping slightly on stone indicated the Orc woman retrieving the gory weapon. "It'll turn up. No one else can use it as long as Ah'm alive sho don't fret your pretty head, Kai."

"Huh?" The first voice again, followed by a noise that sounded suspiciously like a corpse being kicked. " _Burning Familiar_ eh?"

"What'sh that Faolan?"

My heart stopped. _Faolan!?_ _Faolan is here?_ My mouth went dry and my hand went to the dagger on my hip as my pulse quickened, the pounding in my ears threatening to drown out all noise. Until a fourth voice, higher pitched and very familiar to me interrupted

"Oooh! Uncle! Look at this!" I let out an exasperated breath that was thankfully covered by the man called 'Kai' answering.

"What Jali?"

"A mage's robe!" Jaliannon, the very boy I'd clocked upstairs had somehow found his way down here. "Can I have it Uncle? Please? Please? Please?"

"It's a little raggedy don't you think?" Kai answered. "Surely you don't want a dead man's clothes. Besides… I'm not sure if it'll even fit you."

"Oh…" the despondency in the boy's voice was clear.

"Ah can repair it once we make camp if you like. Clean it too. Good as new." The Orc suggested. "Beshides, what kind of villain looks down on robbing corpses?"

"Looting the dead and wearing their clothes are two very different things, Morag." His nephew ignored him however and the enthusiastic tone that had annoyed me earlier reappeared.

"Thank you Auntie Mor!"

"Hehe, no problem little one."

The apparently defeated Uncle Kai sighed. "Well, I'll find the keys then…"

"I've got it." There it was again. _His voice_.

I chanced a peek over the top of my hiding place to confirm my suspicions. There was Jaliannon, the annoying little Redguard from before, surrounded by a _huge_ Orc woman with long grey and black dreadlocks, green-black skin and covered in what seemed to be ruddy elk furs, another, taller, bearded Redguard dressed in functional silks and leather with a short scimitar at his right hip and… _Faolan_.

He was just as my mother described, asides from a decade or so of ageing he'd had since she'd seen him last. Pale red-gold hair tied in a small club at the back of his head. His features a blend of Nord and Breton, making him seem like he could pass as either in a pinch and neither at the same time. I couldn't see his eyes from here but I was sure they would be the same icy blue as my own. All the proof I needed was in his name and in his left hand - a simple Imperial Army bow. _Faolan Redbow_. A Reachman archer with a musical voice and clever fingers. _Mother's foe_.

My knuckles were white around my dagger's hilt and I watched as he made his way to the cage and jimmied it open in the blink of an eye. _Is it him? It has to be! Who else could it be?_

"Haha! This is the best day ever!" Jaliannon exclaimed. "First there was the High Elves in their black robes. Then the Dragon! And then I met a WITCH!"

"Oh?" Faolan turned to the boy and I ducked back down before I caught his eyes.

"Mm, I saved her from the Dragon and she punched me." I could almost hear the smile on his face.

"How'd you know she wash a witch?" Morag inquired.

"She told me she was."

Kai sighed again, a weary sound. "You shouldn't just takes someone's word for things like that. Women lie… a lot. If I was a woman I'd definitely call myself a witch for protection."

Faolan laughed and the lilting tune echoed around the dank chamber. "Tha's because you're an incorrigible thief, liar and all-round unpleasant individual Kai." His laugh turned into a low chuckle. "I take it she gave her name as 'Ashtongue'?"

Kai hissed. Morag grunted. Jaliannon exclaimed, "How'd you know that Uncle Fay?"

Another thud came from where I'd seen the mauled Redguard. "I recognise these wounds. They're from a spell that was favour'd by a woman I knew a long time ago…" he sighed and to my ears it was a wistful breath, of one eager to perhaps reclaim something he'd lost. I knew it only because my mother often sighed the same way. "I was barely older than you are Jali."

"Oh," the boy's tone dropped a little. "Then it can't be her. The witch I met was probably younger than I am."

"Huh?" _Huh_?

"She was so beautiful though Uncle Fay! She was really tall and had silver hair! I've never seen anyone with hair like that before." I felt a blush run across my cheeks. _B-b-beautiful?_ Scruffy. Wild. Skinny. Boyish even. I'd never been called beautiful before and I didn't even realise that I'd relaxed my grip until Faolan spoke again. This time his voice was lower - darker. The music in it seemed to disappear.

"Silver hair? You're sure Jali?"

"Hm?" I felt my knuckles begin to pop as my grip tightened once more, willing the idiot boy to lie. To say 'No, it was all a rush. I don't remember'. _Say it!_ "Of course I'm sure Uncle Fay. I never lie about beautiful women." Morag's smoky chuckle overpowered Kai's next sigh. Faolan though…

"Damn," he hissed. "Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. DAMNIT!" His last curse punctuated by something metal rattling against the iron grate above me.

"Ha-" in my tense, wound-up state the noise startled me so much that I nearly screamed. I clapped my hands against my lips to stifle the cry almost immediately and hope that the Orc woman's mirth covered up the sound.

She did not quit laughing and I let out a breath of relief… _LAAS_ _…_

A sensation I couldn't explain washed over me. It was inexorable. Tingling like the hot sulphurous water of my clan's homeland perhaps. Yet it felt like a cool zephyr of wind blowing softly against my skin. At the same time it was unlike either of these things because the sensation seemed to exist only in my mind. _What is it? What is this?_ I huddled in on myself, somehow it felt as though someone was watching me. My every move revealed to some outer unknown force.

"What is it?" The deep velvety concern in Kai's voice interjected my attempts at hiding.

"…nothin' urgent," Faolan replied. "There's another fight in the caverns 'neath us. Strip the mage so we can be off. I'd rather not sit around while that lizard's thrashin' around up there."

* * *

I passed through the rest of the dungeon in a blur. The haze of rage, confusion and my desperation to get out of this crumbling place seemed to scrub my focus. I only knew I had to follow the archer and his companions to find the exit. _Maybe I'll even get a chance to…_

Another tremor rattled the iron doors of the dungeon's cells and interrupted my thoughts. A few more paces led me into what I immediately suspected was the 'fight' Faolan had mentioned before. _How had he known about that?_

There were a few more soldiers littered about the place; one missing most of his arm and a look of shock etched into his olive-skinned face, another with an icicle embedded in her now frostbitten ear and soft red hair slick with moisture from the melting spell-ice. Between these two lay another Stormcloak who was riddled with red-fletched arrows.

I raced across the small bridge covered in fresh bloodstains and past more fine examples of Imperial soldiery who were blistered and still smoking gently. _Mother,_ I glanced at the singed pattern on the floor, _sometimes I wish you'd hold back a little_. Another bridge led deeper into the caverns and as soon as I was across it the mountain trembled again, sending me tumbling down the 'stairs' at the other end with a much louder crash than I was anticipating. Righting myself and taking note of a half-dozen new bruises I turned back to see the bridge I'd come across now smashed to kindling by a few gigantic boulders.

"Oblivion," I swore softly. _I'm really glad that didn't happen while I was still on it._

The caverns led deeper into the mountain; twisting this way and that, getting narrower until finally the tunnel opened up to more evidence of my mother's passing. Almost a dozen frostbite spider corpses were deposited in various states of carnage about the cave-floor. Some like the Breton soldier above were skewered with magical ice, while others were cloven in twain or otherwise dismembered. It was in the many-eyed faces of a few who seemed to be missing most of their legs that more red-fletched arrows lay. I wondered if they were exterminated by the same person who killed the last Stormcloak or perhaps one of their friends who had decided to make better use of the dead soldiers' effects. _Like me_.

A strange chittering noise alerted me to the presence of a still living arachnid, smaller than the others. I dodged nimbly to the right and avoided being hit by the flying venom. I didn't want to get close and simply fried the cursed little pest with a fireball. Then I heard him. Not Faolan but…

"A BEAR!" Jaliannon's unintentionally obnoxious enthusiasm seemed to pluck every wire in my body the wrong way. "THERE'S A BEAR, AUNTIE MOR!"

"Jali, you really shouldn't shout in the vicinity of sleeping cave bears!" I heard his 'uncle' Kai admonish him even as the slow rumble of a waking beast echoed throughout the large cavern.

"Alright just stand back, let me catch my breath and we'll be by in a jiffy, yeah?" Faolan's voice rang out clear even over the bear's now truly loud grunts and growls. "Mor? Think ya can distract him for a momen'?"

"Ah can," the elder Orc woman's voice was loud and full of steely confidence. I rushed over to the small wall to peek at the possibly grisly scene. "Sho long as you make wit' the shoutin-words fast."

Morag stood in front of the great, grey-brown beast in what I recognised was a standard warrior's stance. Arms and almost bare back rippled with defined and powerful muscles, her legs splayed to lower her centre of gravity while the still gory battle-axe she'd purloined was now held so most of it was behind her. Poised for a powerful, if not lethal, blow at a moments' notice. Behind her stood Faolan, who I realised only now was wearing an obviously pilfered Stormcloak's cuirass; though he'd apparently decided to forgo the blue rebel's cloth. I watched as he closed his eyes and drew in a deep and slow breath. Whatever he was planning to do was completely interrupted by the Redguard boy running forward despite his elder yelling, "Jali, no!"

Kai needed not worry about his nephew though as purple-white sparks coalesced down both his forearms and as he thrust them towards the bear. For an infinitesimal measure of time nothing seemed to happen before a bolt of lightning that left an almost visible scar in the air between the two creatures let loose with a powerful crackling roar.

The cave bear steamed and let out a pitiful little moan before keeling over. The boy let out a whooping victory cry before mimicking its actions, apparently now drained of his magicka. The other Redguard caught him before his head hit the stone floor and lifted him bodily into a carry before glancing at his companions and taking off further into the cave.

I crept forward after they had left, quietly just in case the still-still steaming beast was merely stunned. My foot hit something which tumbled into the shallow creek and made an ungodly metallic rattling. "Hwah!" I yelped. I felt my cheeks heat up with embarrassment and anger. _Stupid girl!_ I chastised myself, _getting so worked up over a bloody helmet_. The helmet in question - a iron bucket type with two downward facing horns looked vaguely appealing but I passed. On the basis that it was both wet now and likely far too heavy for me to wear without any training. Besides…

I had an archer to catch.

* * *

I left the cave blinking in the glaring light. So much so that I tripped over a stone and fell face first into a small snow-bank. Thankfully there was not a lot of the ever present Skyrim snow, and being Last Seed the weather was warm even here, halfway up a mountain.

As I brushed the quickly melting slush off my face I heard a very human roar come from my left, figuring it had something to do with the man I was chasing I leapt into a run. Snowberry bushes and small conifers scratched at my face and clothes but I ran on until I made it to a paved path that led deeper into the mountain passes that surround the Throat of the World. From here I could see the smoke, even smell it slightly. Helgen was burning still. I wondered if the Army had left or if the Dragon had eaten them. Was He still there, rolling in the charred remains of an entire town, chortling like He had at me?

A soft clang and squelch came from very nearby and I dropped into a crouch with my dagger out. _Threat? Or…_

A smoky laugh sounded out and I knew that it was Morag, hence it was in that direction I'd find my mark. I crept slowly and quietly to a small overhang and looked down into what was until recently a small bandit campsite. I could tell because the bandits in question were now lying in a row being examined by the Orc. She was humming as she slowly stripped the female bandit of her armour and jewellery, then surprisingly pulling the arrow from her throat and closing the open and very dead eyes. She murmured something I couldn't hear so I turned to spy on the others. Faolan was wandering about, looking through the tents for something while Kai was laying his nephew down in the furthest tent to apparently sleep before moving towards the road nearby.

The Reachman moved about the camp in no logical way, darting towards the cooking fire one moment and then beside Jaliannon the next. Finally he came close. A mere leap away from where I was, back to me and head bent to look at something I couldn't see. _This is it_ , I told myself. Readying my dagger and shifting to further my lunge I steadied my breathing. _Chance!_

I leapt. He moved. It was so fast I had no time to react, nor could I have stopped him in midair like that anyway. He turned, snatched my wrist out of the air and used my own momentum to slam me into the ground. My instincts kicked in and I struck both my lithe legs for his throat, hoping to catch him in a stranglehold…

He was quicker.

He thrust one of his wiry forearms between my thighs, gripped my left knee before lifting me and flipping my so that when we landed he had both my wrists in his hand, a knee in my back and my face in the dirt. His other hand tore the leather helm from my head and let loose my shock of silvery hair. I twisted so that I could see his face. His icy blue eyes, mirrors of my own bar the signs of age and… something I could not recognise.

He swore softly in a language I didn't know and his face twisted into a bitter smile. "What's ya name girl?"

When I didn't respond he tightened his grip on my wrists so they ground together uncomfortably. "E-elka!" I half shouted, one cheek still rubbing the ground.

"Elka, huh?" He seemed to taste the word, "Elka, elka, el-ka. Well Elka, I bet you know who I am."

"Ah," I agreed, aware I had nothing to gain from lying to this man.

"Well," he dug his knee a little more forcefully into my back. "I'd prefer a proper greetin'. Not that this ain't the first time I've had a girl try to stab me hello." He looked down at me rather expectantly. When I wasn't forthcoming his knee began to dig deeper.

"Argh! Fine!" I shouted. I wriggled and dropped my weapon, trying to indicate I was no longer a threat. He acquiesced and released me. I sat up and looked at him with both of my eyes, trying with all my might to inject as much venom and hatred into my glare as possible, all he did in response was smirk.

"…"

"Well?"

I sighed. "Hello… Father."


	3. Chapter 1: Somewhere In-Between

**Somewhere In-Between**

 **Faolan**

 _I'd tell myself she looks just like her mother,_ I think to myself as I watch the silver-haired girl glare at me across the camp-fire. _Except that she doesn't. She looks just like mine_.

Her wraith-blue eyes, sharp little chin and of course the colour of the mess atop her head. _Add on a few decades of wrinkles and 20 pounds of curves and she'd be a mirror bloody image._ I shake my head and wonder how the last 14 years would have changed had I known Brigitte was pregnant as I left Eastmarch on my pilgrimage. _Probably very little,_ I concede. I was a boy, barely what you'd call a man, and I was a thief with a rare and powerful talent. There's no way I wouldn't have moved with the flow of what I saw then as 'destiny'.

She acts like her mother did though. Or at least how her mother acted with everyone but the charming little urchin who'd spied her bathing that midsummer night. All bristles and fire. Elka sends a glance Jali's way, and I can tell now it's more out of curiosity than concern.

"I didn't know he was a mage," she admits. _Does she feel guilty about punching him perhaps?_

"Would that have stopped ya hittin' him?" I ask, feeling my own curiosity rise in the face of this enigma wearing the face of my distant past.

Her answer is a shrug. _That's a no then._ I feel a chuckle rise and do nothing to suppress it. Seeing my old friend nearly die at the hands of both the Imperial headsman and a great black dragon has had me on edge all day and as Brynjolf always taught me, _"Get yer laughs where ye can, lad. Ye never know which ones'll be yer last."_ So I laugh and I enjoy the way her eyes crinkle in a mixture of both irritation and amusement. Then it stops as Kairah hisses at me from near the overhang.

"Army coming down the pass Faolan," my long-time associate whispers, confident that I'll hear him regardless of the other woodland noises. I go silent and indicate to Morag a need for quiet right now. She nods once and goes back to sewing up the blue robe we'd 'acquired' in the dungeons earlier. Elka looks a little confused but makes no other noises. _Smart girl, huh?_ I feel a little better about leaving Brigitte to raise her alone. Growing up in a clan of cut-throat wild witches would certainly give a child a leg up in the intelligence department. _Not unlike growing up in the streets of Markarth eh, Faolan? What a great life for a little girl._

I silence my snide thoughts and rifle through a small bag of alchemy ingredients I'd found in the ex-bandit's belongings. I pick out a small bundle of dried **dragon's tongue**. Orange petals now crinkled into little balls and the once black-green stems a grey ashen colour. My daughter watches me with a trace of confusion, this is a plant from her clan's home ranges after all. I wonder if her mother's folks ever taught her this little trick though.

I crush the flowers in my right hand and will the magic forward, just a trickle, willing it to infuse with the plant's own natural magic effects. Then satisfied I dump the dusty mess into the camp-fire. Enjoying the look of surprise on her face as the small column of smoke slowly becomes invisible and odourless. She seems about to ask 'How?' but shuts her mouth at my signal to stay silent.

We wait, almost noiseless, as we hear the soft mumble mixed with the sound of marching get closer. I hear horses, curses about dragons, Stormcloaks and the end of the world and in the midst I hear two voices I'd really been hoping had been delusions brought on by the embarrassment of being caught so easily.

The Haafingar accent with fire and steel resting within and the voice of a Breton woman who'd come to see the infamous Redbow in chains at Helgen. _Blast,_ I silently cursed my own fate and that of my old compatriots. _I'm glad Cass is alive but why is_ _ **she**_ _still around. The very least that fire-spitting lizard could've done was get rid of that pest for me_. I sighed and returned my attention to the campfire to broodon my seemingly endless supply of bad luck. Not a prized trait for a sneak-thief cum ranger like myself. The ebon-skinned warrior hiding in the bushes would let us know when the troop had passed.

* * *

Not five minutes later did he jump down from the same place Elka had attempted to assassinate me from. He strolled right up to the campfire with a pipe in his mouth, licked his fingers and grabbed a coal to light whatever foul-smelling desert weed he was smoking lately. I gave him a look of vague disapproval and he returned a look that indicated exactly how little he cared for my opinion on his smoking habits at this point. I sighed and rolled a hand, indicating I'd prefer his report before he was too wasted to talk.

"Barely a dozen soldiers, three battlemages, two Legates and Tullius of course."

"Of course," I nodded. There was no way that old codger was going down before all of his men, I'd seen him on the field before - the man was a master of slow but certain killing strokes. He certainly wasn't going to let an overgrown gecko treat him as a snack.

"That ex-Vigilant that's been chasing us all over the north," I groan and Morag chuckles, "and a half-dozen Thalmor including two in black robes."

I spit on the fire and the old Orc curses them out in her native tongue, and a few besides. "Bloody inquisitors. Jali said he'd seen them but here I was hopin' they'd all been turned to cinders."

"Ah," the cold hatred in his voice undisguised. "I'm just glad the poxy monsters have decided to make Skyrim their latest project, It'll give my homeland a bit of breathing room to plan the next rebellion."

"There's going to be a _next_ rebellion ish there now, Kai?" Morag inserted without lifting her head.

"My people are proud Morag, both sides of them. The elves were stupid if they thought they could conquer Hammerfell by 'treaty' and then just leave like nothing happened." He spat in the fire like I did and leant back to smoke in sullen silence. Apparently that was all he had to say.

"What did you do to the fire?" Her soft voice and unexpected question threw me off and Morag, _the old bitch_ , laughed at what must have been a rather comical look on my face.

I cleared my throat before replying, "It's an old ranger's trick. Ya need a little natural talent for magic and a good supply of dragon's tongue but once ya got it down, it's a rather easy one."

"I got that much," Elka's eyes narrow. ' _Do not treat me like a child',_ I translated. "I want to know what you actually did."

"What are the alchemic properties of dragon's tongue?"

"It makes people chatter like birds if smoked, if chewed either fresh or dried it makes people think they're stronger than a giant and if brewed into potions it produces a tonic that mimics the effect of fire resistance enchantments." I was impressed, I hadn't expected her to know much about enchanting. Few of the wild witch clans bother with it.

"And if mixed with the right catalyst it becomes a powerful reagent for enhancin' the effectiveness of Illusion magics." Her face contorted into a mildly surprised and silent 'oh'. "So I crush it in me hand and mix it with me magic, tryin' to focus only on that part of the plant. Mix in a tiny invisibility spell and vavoom! Invisible smoke!"

"…" she looks at me with a question on the tip of her tongue. I nod to encourage her to ask away. " _'Vavoom'_?"

Morag cackles aloud and even Kairah snorts as I feel an uncommon hotness in my cheeks. _29 winters and I'm still pulling embarrassing stunts by accident._ "Forget I said that bit," I say a little bitterly. "Just remember the rest, yeah?" She gives me an earnest nod and I wonder if this is truly the same girl who not half an hour ago tried to stab me with a stolen dagger. The dagger in question has found its way back to her belt and I see no harm in her keeping it. She's canny and sneaky; and she certainly has the fire and instincts to be a champion scrapper but beyond that there's nothing. No training. No commitment to the life of a killer. I sigh and ask myself if that's really such a bad thing for a girl her age. _Not everyone grows up with two murderous uncles and nightmares of stone walls falling like snow, Faolan._

"Krosis," I softly mutter, hoping the ancient word will drive away my darkness for a time.

"What is that word?" I look toward my bright and pale daughter. A daughter I've known for as long this fire in front of me has been lit. I notice how her face rarely changes, just her eyes. _Heh, she really is just like her mother._

"It's a very, _very_ old word I learnt on a mountaintop a long time ago," I poke the fire with a split arrow. "Probably as long ago as you are old. Why'd ya ask?"

"You said it before, after you saw my hair." _Sharp_.

"Ah, it means somethin' akin to 'sorrow' or 'regret'. But it ain't quite that simple." I send some sparks fluttering upward with a harder poke.

"How?" Her blank stare irritates me a little and I wonder if she's deliberately being a pest because she knows that any attempts to further injure me would be fruitless. Somehow I doubted it, she seemed innately curious about things, though thankfully not as overly enthusiastic about the process as the unconscious Redguard boy nearby.

"Tell ya what," I gave her a grim smile, "If'm still around in the next few months, I'll gladly teach ya."

"What do you mean by that?" one of her white eyebrows crawled up her prominent brow. "Are you going somewhere soon?"

"Probably Oblivion if your attempt earlier is any indication of your mother's mood," I jested. Though a small part of me honestly feared for my life. Brigitte had been formidable as a young woman and well, I'd seen what she'd left in her wake inside the keep at Helgen. "I doubt she'll let me go on the merits of being your 'language tutor'."

"There is no fewry like that of a woman shcorned, Fay," the sewing Orc chimed (or more accurately _grated_ ) in.

"Especially a Daedra-summoning, blood-boiling witch-woman whose man ran off oh," Kai peered at Elka through his pipe smoke. "Fourteen years ago. Ha! I wonder what she ever saw in this dolt."

"It wash probably his clumsy charm," Morag replied. "Either that or she felt shorry for him."

"Hahahaha!" I ground my teeth at the Redguard's obnoxious laughter. "Remember when we first met him? And he fell out the window of that chapel in Daggerfall? Oh, just thinking about it has my sides aching. The look on his face when Varr-"

"Alrigh', hilarious I'm sure," I didn't want either of these two blackguards dressing me down in front of my newly acquainted daughter just yet. "Ya shouldn't mock those that know as much about you as you do them. Or should I tell everyone about the mushroom inciden' in Solitude?" Kai swallowed and narrowed his now bloodshot eyes. "Or p'rhaps the night in Bruma when we all got plastered and someone confess'd their undyin' lo-"

"Lets shtop there, boyo." _Whoops,_ I swallowed. 'Boyo' only comes out when Morag's ready to crack heads. "It's rude to gosship about a lady's past. And you forget Ah'm armed." She held up her wicked-looking sewing needle as a reminder of the damage she could do with or without a maul in her hands. My mind flailed for some sort of distraction when I caught her last word. _Armed_.

"Speakin' of armed," I said, now serious and not at all scared of an old woman I'd known for nearly a third of my life. "If the army's left Helgen then we should be able to go back and grab your bloody hammer. Unless they took it with them?" I directed this question to the both of my dark-skinned companions.

"How heavy's that damn thing if you're not the one carrying it again, Morag?" Kai asked, his usually dark, rich accent becoming clipped as he sunk further into his drugged stupor.

"Two Nords could probably carry it, baht they'd be moving shlower than a Giant trying to count."

"There were only four Nords in the troop that marched by before. All the brave ones probably got eaten or fried. None of them were moving slow either." He lay back, his pipe no longer smouldering, and made himself comfortable against a rolled horse-hide. "It's probably still there."

I nodded at Morag and she quickly snapped off the thread she was stitching. "Ah'll have to clean it later. Should we wake the boy?"

I looked at Jali, whose face seemed a lot ruddier than when we'd laid him down, then I rifled through the little ingredient bag again, sure that I'd seen, _yes!_ I pulled out a dried and twisted clump of **creep cluster** , the spiny orange creeper bound into a tight knot. I threw it at Elka who caught it with a sigh. She was a witch-girl from Eastmarch, she knew immediately what I wanted her to do.

"I'll make the pest some magicka tea." She did not look particularly happy about it though. "If he's not quiet though I'll hit him again." Morag and I shared a look before shrugging, the boy could use more women giving him a punch or two, he was entirely too charming for his age and it was giving him a bit of a big head.

"Did ya wan' me to look for any of your belongin's while we're there?" I offered, uncertain if I'd even know which cart to search. I wasn't even aware she and her mother had been brought in with our caravan until I ran across the body in the torture chamber and heard Jali's story about a 'silver-haired' witch younger than he at 15. She shook her head. "Nothing ya wanted?" At that her hand went to her chest.

"T-they took my bindings," she admitted quietly with a very slight blush on her cheeks. I would have thought it cute had she not tried to strangle me with nothing but her legs. _Somehow I doubt anyone will ever find this girl cute, striking perhaps. Even beautiful when she's older. But cute,_ I thought back to the feral snarl on her lips as her feet shot up past my ears. _Gods no._

I considered the skinny frame I could almost see underneath the baggy Imperial red tunic. "Well, it ain't like ya need 'e-huk" my sentence cut off thanks to Morag smacking me around the back of the head so hard I nearly bit my tongue. Then she walked over to the girl and lay a matronly hand on one pale, bony shoulder.

"If we find them, Ah'll bring it back for you, alright girl?" She flashed a tusky grin that strangely enough seemed far kinder than any I'd received from various human women in my last two decades of life. "And if not… well Ah'll raid the inn, Ah'm sure not everything burned to a crishp." Elka returned her smile, which surprised me no end. The girl had a smile that could bring depressed skooma addicts out of the gutter and into the service of the Divines. It shone for but a moment and was hidden again behind a mumbled 'nk you'.

* * *

I combed through the wreckage of the prison carts, hoping to find anything familiar or useful. Most of what I found however was smashed or burnt. I straightened up and stretched towards the sky, the smell of burning corpses (thankfully not an entirely unfamiliar smell to me) was very heavy here. I began to wonder how many people that black dragon had killed before it had flown away. _No… not it, it was definitely a 'he'. Most of them are._ I rubbed the back of my head where a bump had formed after Morag had smacked me again for being what she called an 'ignoramush'. A loud sigh comes out before I can even think about it.

"Lessh sighing and more looking, Fay." She calls out from one of the other once rolling cells.

"Aye aye ya old biddy," I yell back unenthusiastically. This day had been terrible so far. Scratch that, this last half a week had been just awful. Becoming accidentally embroiled in a skirmish involving of all people Ulfric bloody Stormcloak himself, then being recognised, along side Morag as an 'unsavoury' individual. _It was probably all the dead bodies in High Rock,_ I had thought while being bound with leather straps and shoved in the same enclosed cart as a man who'd featured quite frequently in my childhood nightmares. _Possibly it was councilman we stripped and threw in the canals in the Imperial City. Maybe it even has something to do with the Solitude Incident._ I had no real idea, all I knew was that we were now trudging along towards a grim fate.

One thing that had made it a little better was the fact that while I was locked in the same cart as a murderous, racist scumbag like Ulfric; I wasn't gagged and so could freely mock him for the whole damn trip. I smiled and chuckled a little at the memory. "Ulfric Worncloak," I laughed and shook my head. "I have gotta get better jokes." _At least it was better than the 'Pear of Markarth' one._ The irritated yet defeated look in his eyes had made it all worth it. In any case I was sure that barring some twisted collusion of fate I could readily escape from whatever backwater keep they were dragging us too. After all, it wasn't like they'd gagged me.

And then two men I hadn't seen for years showed up, one in chains and the other leading us to the block; right before the dragon hit and the world surrounding Helgen suddenly turned into some frightful fantasy tale from before the days of empires and rebellions. Some creature from the arse end of time had just swooped in and thrown everything into chaos. _Everything_! At least Varrick had the foresight to station Kairah in Falkreath in anticipation of any trouble. _Where that decrepit old monster gets his information from, I'm sure I'll never know_. Because the skilled, if somewhat hedonistic, Redguard had been waiting in Helgen, they had managed to make it into the keep and out of the caves in several, _whole_ pieces rather than say, partially digested or filled with a quarrel of arrows.

I tear up a board and the disappointed groan that comes out of my mouth echoes about what had been the execution yard. "My clothes!" There lie the tattered remains of my leather jerkin and strides. I pull them up for a closer inspection. "Ruined! Utterly ruined!"

"Did you find my hammer?" Morag calls out, heading this way to check on my exclamatory remarks. I stop wallowing in self-pity for a moment to glance down and kick at a black shiny surface buried in the shattered timber.

"Yes, I found ya blast'd hammer," then I went right back to bemoaning my ruined gear. "Look at this would ya? Just shredded all over."

The Orc pays no mind to my incessant rambling and instead rushed over to retrieve her beloved war-hammer. As soon as she grabs the handle a spot in the middle of the head of the mighty thing starts to glow, lending it the appearance of an evil eye. The great ebony maul was hoisted as if it was featherweight by the old Orc crone and her face split into a content tusky grin.

"Ah, Volendrung. I misshed you too, baby," she croons at her weapon. I'd never asked the story of how she ended up with a Daedric Artefact, a part of me really didn't want to know anyway. When she was done whispering sweet nothings to the ancient hammer she turned and noticed the remains I held in my hands. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'," I replied, unjustifiably bitter that the only thing she'd been looking for had been found in one piece while mine were in… well still one piece, but with about as much structural integrity as the now collapsing houses behind us. "I can't even use these pockets anymore." I poke a finger through the ruined leather. "Shor's hairy taint! Am I suppos'd to just keep wearin' this uncomfort'ble bloody thing til we get to Riften." I kick the detritus about us a few more times and spy my orichalcum dagger and what remained of my old bow. At the sight of my ruined weapon my arms dropped to my side and I let out a horrendous sigh. "I give up. What else were we lookin' for?"

"Bindings for your lassh and any other valuable knick-knacksh," she gave my clothes an appraising look. "Hmm, if you can find shome kwahlity leather Ah might be able to fix them up."

"Really?!" I was a little more enthusiastic than perhaps was called for but I'd had this particular jerkin ever since I stopped being _just_ an apprentice thief in the Guild.

"Mm, Ah'd need a day or so and a workbench baht…" she trailed off.

"Hmm," I racked my brains a little. "Maybe we could go via Riverwood, they've got a nice little forge down there and I know the local ranger. Nice guy for an elf." I notice she hasn't replied yet and look up. "Mor?" Then I notice she's stock-still and staring directly behind me. I hear a small clunk of a heavy foot on some loose timber scraps. " _Damnit! They're always too bloody quiet,"_ I hiss at her. She swallows and nods before slowly moving her other hand to the long black handle of her weapon.

I swallow and raise my hand to finger the amulet around my neck, proof of my devotion to the Goddess of the Sky. _Kyne, forgive me for using your power like this, but I really don't want to die today._ I take a deep breath and relax my throat before shooting a quick nod to my Orc companion. I turn faster than a snake and watch the great sabre-cat nestle in its haunches, about to leap.

 _ **KAAN! DREM! OV!**_ My Thu'um tears through the air and I feel the magnificent creature's mind slip into a peaceful fugue. It relaxes for but a moment and I offer it a silent apology before the spiked hammer-head pulps its skull.

* * *

When we enter the small camp again I find that Jali has been awoken, although he probably looked a little healthier laying down. He had a sour expression and a wad of bloodstained cotton in each nostril. _Eiyah,_ I internally wince and notice his split lip as well. _At least I don't need to teach the girl how to throw a punch._ I drop my sack of purloined valuables onto his snoozing uncle who rather than waking up just snores a little louder. Then I toss a long sheaf of cotton and a small hide jerkin I'd found in the ruins of the town's forge at Elka. She catches them and immediately lopes off behind one of the tents to change.

"Couldn't find any trousers that'd fit ya," I yelled as I sat down next to the bruised Redguard boy. "Mor said she'll make ya a pair when we get to Riverwood. We've got plenty o' leather."

"Ah," the old Orc agrees as she sits tosses a sack full of still gory cat-hide on the ground before thumping her great hammer into the ground beside it and taking a seat by the fire as well. She rustles through the sack for a moment and brings out a cat's eye (the one that wasn't mashed to jelly) and a few strips of pungent meat. "Ah'll have to meashure you when we're there baht there's enough for you and your idiot father."

"Idjit am I?" I send her a cheeky smile, we'd been pleasantly ribbing each other the whole trip back and I was just glad that despite having to murder such a marvellous creature, my prized jerkin was mere days away from being better than new. "Well, I'm the idjit who made sure we didn't hafta get mauled just to acquire a bit of hide. So maybe some thanks; a complimen' or two wouldn't go astray either ya old bat."

"Mold?" Jali asked, his usual enthusiasm dulled to an apathetic whimper to match his new mangled speech.

"Ah," I replied, sliding a pack off my shoulder and fumbling inside to draw my orc-forged knife and the ruins of my clothes. Morag had said that the hood and quiver belt were still fine so I got to work slicing away the heavy leather stitches. "A big old sabre-cat nearly had me fa lunch but I tamed it with my frankly amazin' personality." Morag snorted. _The bitch_.

"Ah, that and your gale of a voice," she blabbed, conjuring a pair of skewers from somewhere on her person (I was not eager to find out where exactly) and piercing the meat and eyeball before laying it on the hot coals by her feet. "Ah don't think Ah'll ever get used to hearing it that closhe up."

Jali's eyes sparkled and I think he was about to start asking me animated questions again until my daughter walked back to the campfire and handed me the red tunic she'd been wearing when I'd first spotted her in the torture chamber. I nodded my head at the crone across from me before taking in her appearance. As she handed the item to Morag I noted that her frame was very slight for a Nord girl, even a young one on the verge of her growings. I attributed it to my own Reachman blood and what was probably a rather sparse diet of late, with Eastmarch being almost stripped bare to feed the rebel army. I watched her eyes dip to the now sizzling cat-meat, and widen as she saw the eyeball.

"Y-you're not going to eat that are you Miss Morag?" She asked, trepidation in her voice. _Is she squeamish? Strange for a witch._

"Jusht Morag is fine, little one. Or Mor is you like," the Orc gave her a grin which on any other creature would look cheeky. "And no, thish is for that layaboot over there." I looked towards the still snoring Kairah, and noted that Jali had turned his eyes down ever since Elka had come back to the fire. "We'll be moving shoon and Ah don't want to be dragging a hammer, a bag of cat _and_ a fried shand-walker." The silver-haired girl nodded as if this made perfect sense.

"I hate eating those things," she admitted with a rare grimace. "Mother used to feed them to me whenever I got into the mushrooms in Aunt Fredda's tent. They always made me want to run around the marsh and throw up until I passed out."

I chuckled. "That's sort of what we're plannin' for Kai." My pieces came away with a final cut and I stand up to decide what I'm going to lug down the valley. I take another wander around the camp as I store my ruined leathers, listening to Kairah snore while the meat sizzled on the fire.

"Ken I helb with anythin, Auntie Mor?" I hear Jali mumble.

"Go and shove this in your ushelessh uncle's gob would you," Morag replied. "Fay!" I turned and caught the half-cooked meat and gave it a look which I then treated the old Orc to. "Quit griping and shwallow it. We haven't eaten properly in days."

"Warm cat-meat ain't what I call eatin' properly."

"Shut it and chomp fast. This one's for you lassh," she handed the other sizzling slab to Elka.

"Thank you Morag," was all she said before tearing into the dripping red morsel. I cringed a little before remembering that her mother had once fed me something very similar. Letting out a sigh before putting the whole chunk into my mouth and sending a bloody grimace at the Orc who'd taken on the role of party grandmother. I turned around just in time to hear the horrendous yowl of my no-longer asleep companion.

"EYAAAARGH!" Kairah bounced to his feet and ran for the nearby bushes. I finished chewing and forced the unpalatable meat down my throat while trying to ignore the sounds of a man forcing something even less so _up_ his.

When the bearded warrior re-entered the camp with bloodshot eyes and spittle on his lips he immediately looked at me. "Nice ta see ya awake there, Kai," I nodded at the bag of stuff by his makeshift bed. "Pick that up would ya? It's got-"

"Who fed me that blasted thing!" He roared. I, being a responsible adult, pointed immediately at Morag and when he turned to roar defiance at her I winked at his nephew who had a rather cheeky smirk on face. I tuned out the resulting argument and instead picked up the rolled horse hide, Morag might find it useful and if not, well it would serve as a makeshift pillow or blanket at least.

"Elka," I called her over with a hand wave. She stalked over with a blank expression still adamantly chewing her meat. I noticed her piece was larger than the one I'd been handed. _Not that I'm gonna complain about that._ I just stare at her for a moment, the hide fits around her much better than the tunic and I surmise that my guess about it being made for a child or elf was right. It was tied much tighter than perhaps it was intended though and I could see the top of her cloth binding in the middle. I handed her the satchel of alchemy ingredients and a quiver of arrows I'd found in the camp. "You're carryin' these," and then I pushed the horse-roll into her chest, "and that."

She gave me a look before shrugging and turning, as if asking me which way to go. I wondered if she'd ever been out of Eastmarch before this and decided I'd ask her at some point on the road. One thing I was sure of however was that this would be a temporary journey. Especially temporary if her mother managed to murder me the next time we met. I suppressed a paranoid shiver and pointed to the west.

"That way til ya see the stones," I said shouldering a sleeping roll. "Then it's a few hours walk down the river… You ready?"

"Not really," she admitted and noted that she was looking in the direction I'd pointed. _Shy? Or just doesn't want me to see her weakness._

"Me too, kiddo."

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm still getting used to trying to write both Faolan and Morag's speech styles so bear with me on that. Any plants will be first mentioned in Bold. I'm not going to make a glossary of all the different bloody terms in this universe, if you're reading this, chances are you know what Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls are. That's all, look forward to the next chapter I guess. :3


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